Tkachuk knew the Panthers would be back in the Stanley Cup Finals. He’s a big reason why

As he made his way down the ice to congratulate his teammates, the words of affirmation finally came out.

“I told you we’d be back!” Matthew Tkachuk shouted as he hugged goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky.

Yes, the Florida Panthers are back in the Stanley Cup Finals for a second consecutive year. That was their plan, their mission from the start of the season. The Panthers as a whole, and Tkachuk individually, had no qualms making their grand plan known. They had unfinished business after the way last season ended, with Florida’s miraculous run from the last team in the playoffs to one of the last two standing ending mercifully at the hands of the Vegas Golden Knights in five games.

“There’s some great memories, but it didn’t end the way we wanted it to,” Tkachuk said ahead of training camp. “You cannot dwell on your past, but you can keep it in your mind. ... We experienced something last year that is going to help us this year, so we can’t totally forget about it, but we’ve got to create some new memories.”

The Panthers have made all sorts of memories since Tkachuk’s arrival in South Florida.

Tkachuk was acquired in the blockbuster trade with the Calgary Flames ahead of the 2022-23 season to be one of the final big pieces the Panthers needed to get over the hump. He possessed the combination of physicality, grit and skill that would give the Panthers an edge to their game that they sorely lacked and sorely needed to make a deep playoff run.

And look where they have gone since then.

Tkachuk had a heavy hand in getting the Panthers to the doorstep of their ultimate goal in Year 1. That was fueled in large part by him being an offensive juggernaut, finishing as a finalist for the Hart Trophy given annually to the NHL’s most valuable player and coming up with heroic moment after heroic moment in the playoffs.

His production in Year 2 has come a little more on the quieter side. He enters Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Finals against the Edmonton Oilers on Saturday leading the Panthers with 19 points this postseason (five goals, 14 assists), but the production has flown under the radar because it hasn’t been in the flashiest of moments.

But there’s so much more that goes beyond goals and points when factoring in Tkachuk’s value to this team.

And it has the 26-year-old superstar winger playing some of the best hockey of his still burgeoning career — and has the Panthers once again on the cusp of what could be their first Stanley Cup.

“He’s a strong voice and he’s an experienced voice who’s been through a lot in a short period so far,” Panthers defenseman Aaron Ekblad said. “He’s done a lot of great things. He’s scored a lot of clutch goals. We believe in him as a leader.”

There are so many different things to consider when trying to describe Tkachuk and his value on the ice.

Of course, there’s the never-ending confidence, the swagger that remains unchanged regardless of his individual performance, that helps lift up the dressing room.

There’s also his knack for riling up the opponent and seeming to know exactly what it takes to get under an opponent’s skin. Just ask the Rangers’ Chris Kreider, who grabbed Tkachuk’s mouth guard and attempted to throw it into the crowd after a scrum early in the third period of Game 4 of the Eastern Conference final after a scrum.

“He’s a great player,” Oilers star Connor McDavid, who faced Tkachuk many times over six seasons when Tkachuk was in Calgary, told reporters in Edmonton earlier this week. “Smart. Effective. Understands the gamesmanship side of the game and he’s good at it.”

But Tkachuk’s drive to get better — both for himself and for the betterment of his team — stands out above the rest.

So after putting up a 109-point season in 2022-23, Tkachuk’s priority wasn’t finding ways to generate more offense.

His goal was to figure out how to fine tune the defensive side of his game.

“I could get 20 or 30 points less and feel like a way better player than I was last year,” Tkachuk said before the season.

About that...

Tkachuk finished this season with 88 points — 21 fewer than last year.

But if you ask coach Paul Maurice, Tkachuk played better hockey this year than he did last year.

Why?

Tkachuk putting more of an onus on the defensive end of the game was needed, especially early in the season when Florida was missing three key players from its lineup. Ekblad and fellow defenseman Brandon Montour missed the first 16 games while recovering from offseason shoulder surgery. Sam Bennett, who normally centers Tkachuk’s line, had a pair of lower-body injuries that held him out for 12 of the first 13 games.

Heck, Tkachuk himself wasn’t even 100 percent to start the season as he continued to work back from a fractured sternum sustained in Game 3 of the last year’s Stanley Cup Finals against Vegas.

But Tkachuk provided the Panthers with what they needed, playing the steady defense-first style Maurice has implemented and letting that translate into offense. He didn’t cheat to pad his stats.

Eventually, the numbers came. After putting up just 22 points in his first 32 games, Tkachuk scored 21 goals and dished out 45 assists over his final 48 regular-season games.

“He’s a leader in there,” Maurice said, “so the culture and the shape of our team, he has a major impact on that.”

And there’s the discipline, with Tkachuk learning how to straddle the line of being an agitator but not going too far to the point where it comes at the hindrance of his team and him finding his way into the penalty box.

Last season, Tkachuk led the Panthers with a combined 197 penalty minutes and 10 misconducts throughout the regular season and playoffs.

This season, he cut his penalty minutes down to just 88 in the regular season and has only tallied 19 penalty minutes this postseason — 15 of which came from his fight with David Pastrnak in Game 2 of the second round against the Boston Bruins.

But that doesn’t mean there’s been a decrease in his physicality. Rather, he has found the balance between playing tough and playing smart.

“He’s just not in the penalty box anymore,” Maurice said. “I would say straight through November and into January last year, he was. He was the Tasmanian Devil out there, spent a lot of time in the dog pound. He is just not now.”

It’s a sign of the latest stage of Tkachuk’s development.

But so, too, is this: When Tkachuk was asked about his personal growth, he once again did what he could to not make it about himself. He acknowledged his game “changing a little bit” but then spun it toward the bigger picture.

“Not only myself but our whole team is super disciplined,” Tkachuk said. “Not necessarily just disciplined with not taking penalties, even though we’re down really a ton in that, but just discipline in our routes on the ice and being predictable and disciplined and knowing what the guy next to you is going to do and discipline in your shift length. Like everything.

“We’ve got that full-on buy-in right now 24/7. Our team has taking huge strides in that since I’ve seen in two years and, hopefully, we’re peaking at the right time.”

It has them back where Tkachuk thought — no, knew — they would be: Competing for a Stanley Cup.